Astronomers locate planet blasted away by violent star

This graphic contains an image and illustration of a nearby star, named CoRoT-2a, which has a planet in close orbit around it. (Chandra photo)

The X-rays pummeling a planet 880 light-years away are about 100 thousand times more intense than those traveling from the Sun to the Earth, and astronomers say that’s why planet CoRoT-2b is losing 5 million tons of material every second.

Using a telescope at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers located the shredded planet orbiting relatively close to star CoRoT-2a — only about 2.8 million miles away.

What they saw was surprising, but not only because of what’s happening to the planet.

“This planet is being absolutely fried by its star,” said Sebastian Schroeter of the University of Hamburg in Germany. “What may be even stranger is that this planet may be affecting the behavior of the star that is blasting it.”

The planet’s close proximity to the star could be speeding up the star’s rotation and keeping its magnetic fields overly active.

“If it wasn’t for the planet, this star might have left behind the volatility of its youth millions of years ago,” Stefan Czesla, also of the University of Hamburg.